570 HISTORY OF ART 



lean statue, the obvious method is to judge all material hitherto 

 supposed to be Praxitelean by this standard. By this test, for example, 

 the so-called Eubouleus head is accepted or rejected as a claimant 

 for membership in the Praxitelean group. The sculptures of the 

 great temple of Zeus have taken a very important place in the history 

 of art. The statement of Pausanias that Paionios and Alkamenes 

 .made the gable sculptures has generally been rejected on account of 

 ; their style, which seems to point to a date earlier than that of these 

 two sculptors. It is quite possible that there will never be agreement 

 as to the school that produced these temple adornments; but one 

 thing seems fairly well settled, viz., that both gables and the metopes 

 bear the stamp of a single style. Since the metopes were surely made 

 .at the time of the building of the temple, the gables also must have 

 been made at about the same time; and their style fits well enough 

 to the reported date of their execution, about 400 B. c., long before 

 .Phidias had appeared to make his Olympian Zeus. 



The excavation of Delphi has at present raised more questions 

 than it has settled. Of the miscellaneous cargo of statues found in 

 the sea at Antikythera the same may be said. 



But the excavations on the Athenian Acropolis have thrown a 

 .wonderful light on the history of sculpture. They made Mrs. Mitchell's 

 carefully prepared History of Greek Sculpture antiquated almost as 

 soon as it was printed. Luckily in their case we had a terminus ante 

 tjuem to fix the date of the objects. The debris loft by the Persians; 

 came forth, and lo! it silenced all doubts as to the painting of statues. 

 Xot only did the old statues of soft limestone here show a coating of 

 most brilliant colors, red and blue, thickly laid on. but the somewhat 

 kiter archaic marble statues showed garments with painted borders, 

 hair, diadems, and eyes painted with discretion if not with taste. 

 That the nude parts also had a toning of less strong color could hardly 

 x l>e doubted. Where color was lacking it might in some cases be seen 

 .that it was simply because it had worn away. The garment of the 

 Moschophoros could be properly understood only by the supposition 

 .that it was painted. The notion of chaste, white marble as the 

 material of Greek sculpture vanished at a touch of truth. The 

 question became, not whether the Greeks painted their statues, but 

 h'nir they painted them. One simply surrendered to the evidence, 

 fcvhich was compelling. That this practice did not cease with the 

 ii-rehaic period, but was continued as long as Greece practiced tin- 

 .art is absolutely certain. That this was true of Praxiteles might have 

 be.cn well enough known from the statement of Pliny, so much neg- 

 lected, that Praxiteles valued most his statues that had been touched 

 up by the painter Xikias. 1 



: Xow app!yi;:g the propr-r method of study, one sees traces of 



1 PHnv, 3o, 133. 



